


Anamnesis

by lovekaneki (gonewithten)



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Dom/sub Undertones, M/M, Memory Related, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-22
Updated: 2015-02-22
Packaged: 2018-03-14 13:05:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3411683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gonewithten/pseuds/lovekaneki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes Haise's hidden memories fight to come to the surface. When he can no longer handle it, he goes to Arima for help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anamnesis

Sometimes Haise remembers. Not much at first, just bits and pieces or feelings. A tightness in his chest as he's surrounded by his fellow investigators, accompanied by the feeling that he's not safe, and he has to leave a meeting abruptly and hide in the bathroom until he feels calm again. Akira might come to check on him, but he always assures her that he's fine and persuades her to leave.

But when it gets to be too much, when his skin feels like a suit that clings unnaturally to his body, the only thing he can do to calm himself is to find his mentor and disappear with him somewhere private. There Arima will guide him into feeling... not safe, because no matter where he goes, he doesn't quite feel like the faces are genuine and belong to people he can truly trust, but... under control.

When he's with Arima he feels a familiar sense of loss of self, and he feels that Arima is the one that holds it, or can pick up the shattered pieces of his psyche and shape him into a form that is proper and livable, subdued. Intimidated isn't the right word for how he feels. Owned would be closer. Like Arima holds his entire existence in his palm, allows it to continue, but that he could end it as simply and easily as it is for him to breathe.

So in Arima's presence when he's in this state he bends to Arima's will, pliant but desperate as he tries to cling to what he's been given and push back the screaming inside him. He kneels at Arima's feet and obeys him like it's the only natural, obvious, and real thing he could do, and if he doesn't cry, he certainly feels like he needs to.

People he might have known once try to reveal themselves in the fog, their faces and existences shrouded in black smoke and wet, dusty mist. He thinks he could say their names if he allowed himself to accept them, but it pierces him and it's better to scream Arima's name when they're in bed as he claws Arima's back. He thinks he can hear Arima whisper his name into his ear, but it's too short and drips with inevitability.

He knows who he is for a while, and as he lies next to the one who holds his life he feels like a ghost. He doesn't look at Arima's face when he gets up to leave and pulls his clothes over himself like a mask. He thinks that if he did he couldn't turn away anymore.

Once he leaves he forgets he ever came. But he always finds himself pulled back.

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies for cross-tagging this as both Arisasa and Arineki, but I felt that it was both in this fic.
> 
> Thanks for reading. Comments and kudos would be greatly appreciated!


End file.
